Bookbinding, sketching, and collecting street art

Archive for April, 2013

Our host for April is Sally over at Diario, so please do pop over to her blog to find out who else is playing along.

Inspiration

If you’ve been following my blog then it won’t have escaped your notice that I’ve been pretty busy on the sketching front, inspired by a wee scrap of a pup called Pebbles. This is technically a terrible photo, but I love it because it was a quiet moment at work on my birthday. Pebbles is prone to naughtiness, and when he’s been particularly naughty (breaking into the vegetable garden for the umpteenth time…) he earns himself a smacked bottom and then he’s ignored. He hates being ignored, and it leads to him grovelling for forgiveness. This photo is him trying to inveigle himself back into my good books… and as you can see from the hand reaching to stroke him, he was successful!

Something I made

Still haven’t added this to my shop, but it’s probably my favourite of all the books I made this month. The pages are a mixture of cartridge paper, watercolour paper and pastel paper, and the hard covers are bound with canvas – so you can draw inside and out!

Red

One of my favourite colours, so I loved this topic! My favourite jacket is actually grey, but it’s got red and white polka dot edging in it, and I tend to wear it with this brooch (by the lovely Lise at Belle & the Bean, better known these days for her fabulous blog), and recently this scarf I picked up down Portobello Market.

Rocks

I meant to take a photo of actual rocks, but got caught short (I forgot that April only has thirty days!) and this was a last minute substitute. Gravel, and York stone… cultivated rocks?

Motif: Western

A really tricky topic for me! In the end I remembered that we have these little plant pots, which is the closest I could get to western…

Sally will be choosing her favourites in the next week or so, so please do remember to check her blog again later this month.

What’s happening next month with the Crafty Photo Scavenger Hunt? If the rota is to be believed then Jenna over at Timballoo is our host for May… but she’s just got married and I’m not sure if she’s away on honeymoon at the moment, so I need to double check! Keep an eye out here for updates.

Not as good as the last lot, I definitely think that the watering can series is my favourite so far. I ran out of photos to work from, so I turned to some other hairy beasties…

Meet George (the big one) and Hoolie. They’re komondors, and are owned by friends of mine who live in Orkney. Hoolie is one year old this week, and will eventually have a fully corded coat like George’s.

A couple more sketches, the last two for this book as I have finally reached the end of it.

I always feel a bit emotional reaching the end of a sketchbook, but do enjoy looking back at everything and of course there’s something exciting about a new book and all those blank pages to fill!

I think I’m on my tod for the Sunday Sketchblog this week, Hayley‘s got quite a lot on her plate, and Jenna got married yesterday so please join me in wishing her all the best!

This wee scrap of a pup is called Pebbles, and I sketched him for the first time a couple of weeks ago. He’s proving to be hugely inspirational for me, so expect to see more of him in my sketchbook in the future!

I’ve just realised that I haven’t posted any photos of new notebooks since early March, which is pretty poor considering my main craft is bookbinding! I haven’t been idle, I have a pile of books which are waiting to be listed on Etsy, I just haven’t got round to it yet. I’ll remedy that in the next few days.

In the meantime I had an unusual commission last weekend. One of my gardening clients (or, rather, her youngest daughter) wanted a hairbrush personalised for one of her friends. Not my usual thing, but I’m always up for a challenge! They provided the brush, told me what they wanted on it (a guitar, and the friend’s name), and then left it with me. I found a picture of a guitar I liked the look of, simplified it somewhat, got busy with the pyrography iron, and voila!

It came out well, very true to the original sketch, and the client was pleased with it 🙂

Our host for March was Ruth over at The Goldhawk Project, so please do pop over to her blog to find out who else is playing along. I cannot apologise to Ruth enough for being so ridiculously tardy with my photos for March… I have no excuse other than just being crap – I’m so sorry (it’s my birthday today, so you have to forgive me! 😉 )

Inspiration

March for me was all about the sketching, and daffodils in particular.

I was rather hoping to have some more dog sketches to celebrate my 60th sketchblog post, but the best laid plans of mice and men… anyway, I’ve had a headache since last Sunday, and so haven’t really been able to concentrate very well. Some days it’s been excruciating, and others merely painful (don’t fret, I’m seeing my GP this week!), but either way it’s been a struggle to focus on things. As such, all I’ve managed to do in my sketchbook is doodle…

It’s very soothing, and on a practical note it’s helped me get to know my new pens a little better!

Last week Jenna had a great sketch of some flappers, I wonder what’s in her book this week?